Tips for Teachers: A Great School Year Start

The Author is Teacher --oOo-III at Mauaque High School , Division City of Mabalacat. Rachelle Ann C. Payabyab

Are you ready to start over after last year’s school year? What is the best way to do it? Getting ready to start a new school year can be both exciting and stressful. Here are some tips and suggestions for preparing for your first day of school while maintaining your sanity.

The first few weeks of school are always the hardest, but things will get easier as the year progresses. It’s good news because we get the worst part over with right away. It is totally normal to be exhausted at the beginning of the year. It happens even to veteran teachers. You’ll have other stressful points in the year, but by the end of September, you’ll have overcome the biggest hurdle. The tunnel has light at the end.

During the process of preparing for the job, many new teachers make these two mistakes in their thinking: Getting ready for the first day is the most important part and back-to-school activities are essential.

As a new school year approaches, your most important task will be to create, introduce, model, and reinforce your procedures and routines. In the first few weeks of school, you will set the tone for your class. You’ll need to reinforce your rules and routines constantly because you can’t teach all your procedures on the first day. How will you spend your second day of school? Think about how you are going to reinforce your routines next week.

The second misconception comes from so many resources about what to “do” with the kids on the first day of school. It’s all about teaching! Routines, procedures, and then academics. Even if you think that’s extreme, the best teachers establish procedures quickly so they can begin immediately. The first 10 months of your child’s life are precious - do not waste them on back-to-school stuff. Your classroom tone should be safe and inviting, and your expectations should be clear to learners.

The most important thing is to plan out your routines. All of them. Stacking chairs on desks, pencil sharpening, bathroom privileges, and passing papers is part of the job. Establish expectations and communicate them to kids. It will be harder for learners to misinterpret or push the limits of what is acceptable if you are more specific. Plan the procedures and leave the list for substitutes so they can refer to it if they must. Changes can always be made.

You can’t teach it all at once. Routines must be taught first thing, later in the day, or later in the week, depending on their priority. In the first half hour of the children being in the room, you will probably cover things like running in the classroom and hand-raising policies. Later, you can practice hall behavior, bathroom expectations, pencil sharpening routines, and conflict resolution rules. Then, instead of spending the day intervening in conflicts, I could model problem solving by talking about friendship and respect. This is appropriate for young children in school to learn social skills.

Everyone finds the beginning of the year the most physically and intellectually draining, but you won’t be exhausted every night. Work hard now and you’ll reap the rewards soon. Even if other teachers aren’t showing it, they are experiencing beginningof-the-year stress, too. However, doing it you can start the school year great.

The author

is Teacher

—oOo—

III at Teodoro P. Tinio Elementary School